Doctors who have a financial interest in radiation treatment centers are much more likely to prescribe such treatments for patients with prostate cancer. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/us/doctors-who-profit-from-radiation-prescribe-it-more-often-study-finds.html?ref=us  Medicare beneficiaries were often unaware that their doctors stood to profit from the use of radiation therapy. Alternative treatments may be equally effective and are less expensive for Medicare and for beneficiaries.
In other recent studies, the auditors found a similar pattern when doctors owned laboratories and imaging centers that billed Medicare for CT scans and magnetic resonance imaging.
Doctors who recommend the treatment have financial relationships with those who provide it. For example, a group of urologists may own radiation therapy equipment that is used by other doctors in the same medical group to treat patients.
“Financial incentives” appeared to be contributing to the higher use of this type of radiation therapy for patients with prostate cancer, one of the most common cancers in men.
Urologists “referred a substantially higher percentage of their prostate cancer patients” to radiation therapy when the doctors owned the equipment — linear accelerators — or had financial ties to those who provided the treatment.
“When you look at the numbers in this report, you start to wonder where health care stops and profiteering begins,” said Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who is the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “We have a law on the books designed to prevent these conflicts of interest, but an increasing number of physicians are skirting the law for personal gain.”
Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, said that “this analysis confirms that financial incentives, not patients’ needs, are driving some referral patterns.”

Doctors should be required to note such relationships on the claims they file with Medicare. The Obama administration disagreed with this recommendation.

“We are extremely concerned that many older male patients are receiving possibly unnecessary treatment by urology groups.” said Dr. Michael L. Steinberg, the chairman of the American Society for Radiation Oncology.
“Some physician groups are steering patients to the most lucrative treatment they offer, depriving patients of the full range of treatment choices, including potentially no treatment at all,” said Dr. Steinberg.